Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Market to See 40% CAGR Surge

Investors and vendors are feeling very optimistic about the growth of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

July 24, 2017 - The advent of true artificial intelligence in healthcare may still be some way off, but strong interest in achieving the goals of AI is producing a significant surge of investment in advanced machine learning, predictive analytics, and cognitive computing.

According to a new Market Study report, the healthcare artificial intelligence segment is projected to see a staggering 40 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2017 and 2024, resulting in a $10 billion market focused on medical imaging, diagnostics, personal AI assistants, drug discovery, and genomics.

“Increasing big data volume and the ever-increasing need to effectively store and manage the healthcare data will drive healthcare artificial intelligence market growth,” the report states. “Advent of innovative technologies for effective diagnosis and treatment should further accelerate business penetration.”

Dig Deeper

Imaging analytics and diagnostics driven by machine learning will bring rapid growth, predicts analysts. Tools, services, and platforms related to these activities are expected to surpass $2.5 billion by the middle of the decade.

Meanwhile, drug discovery applications are anticipated to account for more than 35 percent of the healthcare AI marketplace, and could be valued at more than $4 billion by 2024 as pharmaceutical and life science companies search for more efficient ways to process big data to create cost-effective, safer therapies.

In conjunction with the artificial intelligence market, the general big data analytics environment is projected to skyrocket in value as providers, payers, and other stakeholders harness their growing data assets to produce actionable insights.

P&S Market Research expects that the global opportunity for healthcare big data analytics will reach $43.3 billion by 2023, with data storage and on-demand deployment services comprising the largest segments.

“Factors driving growth in the global big data analytics in healthcare market include significant increase in demand for financial analytics in healthcare, surge in demand for exploring structured and unstructured data present in healthcare industry, decreasing costs and availability of big data software and services, along with amplified adoption of new technologies for data analytics in healthcare business transformations, globally,” the report explains.

The as-a-service model for big data analytics and machine learning is becoming incredibly popular as healthcare organizations gear up for deploying artificially intelligent diagnosticians and consumer relationship managers.

In December of 2016, the Machine Learning-as-a-Service (MLaaS) market was projected to be worth nearly $5.4 billion by 2022 as provider organizations begin setting up the data analytics, natural language processing, and algorithm development environments required to make the leap to true artificial intelligence.

While AI is a capability that is generating a great deal of hype, excitement, and investment across the healthcare industry, the Market Study report notes that several concerns may stand in the way of achieving artificial intelligence’s full potential.

“Huge initial investment, complex ROI structure and significant maintenance and repair costs should hamper industry growth,” analysts point out, while “rising concerns that healthcare AI adoption could lead to unemployment on a large scale can impede expansion over the forecast timeframe.”

Healthcare stakeholders will need to address these potential barriers as they develop the advanced health IT tools required to address pressing problems in the fields of diagnostics, predictive analytics, population health, and clinical decision support.